The Atheist Blogger

Ray Comfort’s blog has been around since October 2007 (according to the site), but I’ve only been a subscriber for the past 3 months or so. In that time, the blog title has changed twice.

At the time I joined his readership, his blog was called “Comfort Food” which I thought was quite witty of him. His name is Comfort and he is giving out “digestible” bites of information about Christianity that would probably comfort his Christian readership. However, as Ray began to attack atheism more, he claimed

…the name “Comfort Food” by itself gave the impression that this is a cozy corner for Christian fun, food, and fellowship. However, a quick look at the comments and it’s clear that it’s not. Some have been shocked and others have been discouraged by what they see as fighting. There really is a battle going on in there (see Ephesians 6:12-20). Hence, the name change.

So…arming himself for the war against atheists, he changed the name of the blog to “The Soapbox“, arguing that a soapbox is something one stands on to make a speech and vent frustrations. Many people have noted that the modern version of the soapbox is indeed the blog, so the reference went hand in hand. Comfort was preaching from his soapbox to the unconverted atheist crowd.

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I’ve come to a bit of a conundrum and I’d like some opinions of a possible merging of blogs. My first blog (http://adrianhayter.com) was a personal blog I kept for various friends and to share some opinions / work with the world. I never really put much on it, and after I started this blog, it gradually fell into disuse. This is something I greatly regret, but maintaining two blogs can get annoying knowing that you are constantly switching audiences.

Obviously I don’t want to get rid of either of them, so I suggest a simple merge. My personal blog will merge into this one. The Atheist Blogger will continue to be a blog about atheism, but will also have semi-regular posts about myself, my life, and my work. I am sure this would interest those among you who like to hear about universities, computers, and general technobabble, but I’d like to hear a general consensus of opinions from everyone.

I will try to keep up my 1 article on atheism a day minimum (please excuse the past weekend which has been busy), but will also include articles about student life, especially student activism like my Atheist & Agnostic Alliance student group, and general posts about work I do on my course (Computer Science with Information Security)

Nothing else will change. The domain will be the same, the forums will remain, as will the book club. I’m an atheist student, and I want to share my entire life with you, not just my atheistic side!

I’ve often described myself as anti-religious but it’s a very vague label I’ve used for the past 5 or 6 years. It only really applies to the big players out there; Christianity, Islam, Judaism, as well as the slightly smaller religions like Sikhism, and the obvious cults like Scientology, Mormonism and the Westboro Baptist Church. I could hardly call myself anti-religious of all religions, since a lot of them are perfectly fine. I have no beef with Buddhism or Hinduism since they are tolerant religions (as far as I am aware). Women in Hinduism have suffered intolerance in the past, but this has been eradicated in recent years to the point where the only people who practice such things as Sati are not connected with the main Hindu movement.

So no, taking everything into consideration, I am not “anti-religious”. The one thing that draws all the religions I am against into one group is intolerance. They are all intolerant of something (sometimes many things) that has no reason in the modern world, whether it be Homosexuality, Women, Black people (Mormonism), or Psychiatry (Scientology). Some people who subscribe to these religions try to adapt them to better suit the times, but such adaptation is often a violation of a core belief, leaving me wondering why these people seem to prefer picking and choosing beliefs rather than following no doctrine at all.

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